My Life Underground with Dobie Gillis

My Life Underground with Dobie Gillis

by Maynard G. Krebs

All at once, Dobie’s Dad
said to me, “Bongo,
Beat means beatific
and Kerouac must die
to get a book published
and rise to be a star
as dopey good Dobie in love
with – good choice, good luck –
Tuesday Weld wearing only her bobby sox.”

All night every night
Kerouac came in from Queens
on the subterranean subway,
the 7 and F trains,
and all night every night,
Dobie flew in
from Cleveland with genius
baseball player Thurman Munson
in Munson’s astro-jet,
over all the roads faster,
rushing in the night to
touch and go
in Alphabet City.

In those late nights,
Zelda Gilroy was the most, man,
quick-witted, beautiful, brave,

and she was the most neglected
and the most earth essential poet,
in timeless recording of this
Hot Flurry of Emotions,
these teeming eruptions, these tears,
this laughing faster, this think
think think with Nietzsche,
this stumble to
the floor exhaustion
as if sweet confession
was an epic adventure.

And Dobie said to me in my home,
“That was no way to say Hello,
and then even my anger bored me,
hell, and giraffes and daffodils
and race holocaust History
borrowed all my booze money,
and the sun arose ponderously,
and there I was, caught whispering
with the soul of love
on a date with some preppy.”

And I said to Dobie,
“Take your time,
wait by the river of the
Zen Lunatic Buddha,
give now to your dying mother
what she gave to the kids
in the steep backyard,
peanut butter for the wargames
of boys fighting Mexico.
“Work?” I gulped.
“Work? When there’s a job
worth doing, I’ll play,
but not for hell in this cult
of busyness and bosses.
Who’s on first, What’s on second,
Who’s at bat?
No, Who’s on first and
Abbott and Costello ran off
with my love
life laughing, ha! I love a joke!”

The Wind Spirit of the West
blew us all away.
Those were the days of departure,
with nowhere else to go.

Then I, Maynard G. Krebs,
waited out the Sixties
and the Seventies lost
in the Pacific with Tina Louise
in a miniskirt on Gilligan’s island.
Now I’m a planet, a cartoon,
like Orion and the dawn
pink with blushing.
Saturday morning is mine.
Dobie is, like, geniusville, man, bop.
So’s Zelda Gilroy, a great artist, bop.
Tuesday Weld’s still pretty wild.
Dobie’s Dad is fine.
Hello, glad to see you.